Top 20 Most Shared Ads Of August 2013: Football Ads Kick Rivals Into Touch

Football takes centre stage in this month’s Unruly Global Ads Chart. With football leagues across Europe now in full swing and excitement over the return of the NFL increasing, it’s probably not surprising that commercials featuring footy stars from either side of the Atlantic dominate.

Leading the way is a spoof music video from DirecTV called Football on your Phone, which stars NFL stars Eli and Peyton Manning.

In it, the quarterbacks dress up as hip-hop stars, decked out in gold chains and ridiculous wigs, while rapping about DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket package, which allows you to watch football directly on your smartphone.

The spot, created by Grey New York, drew over 453,256 shares last month, making it the second most popular ad of August, behind GEICO’s sharing juggernautHump Day. With such high-profile sports stars acting so silly, it’s not hard to see why it has done so well online.

Fans of Saturday Night Live will also recognise similarities to the hugely successful sketch ‘D*ck In A Box’ (the brothers even sport similar haircuts to Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg), but, more importantly, the song is the kind that will have you singing in the shower for weeks.

A very different kind of American football is the focus of another top 5 ad. The hilarious An American Football Coach in London celebrates NBC Sports acquiring the rights to screen English Premier League matches across the pond.

Only problem is, some Americans are apparently a bit fuzzy on the rules. With that in mind, Jason Sudeikis stars as London club Tottenham Hotspur’s latest buy, the hapless Coach Lasso. Seeing as Lasso can’t get the name of his new club right, there’s little hope for the offside rule.

The result is a four-and-a-half minute video that entertained football fans on both sides of the Atlantic during August, its 253,906 shares enough for it to finish in third position.

Whether it will get Americans watching soccer is another matter altogether, however.

Completing the hat-trick of football-related ads is a commercial for Qatar Airways starring a host of stars from FC Barcelona.

In their continued partnership with the European soccer giant, the carrier’s imaginative new spot turns the Catalan club into a sort of footballer’s Utopia. Complete with defender Gerard Pique working immigration at the airport and a fleet of red-and-blue taxis, we are welcomed to a land which is all Barca, all the time. Real Madrid fans, look away now.

This is only the beginning of the whistle-stop tour of ‘Barca-topia’, as we see celebrity players performing all sorts of social functions. The world’s best player, Lionel Messi, teaches a (football-based) dance class, defender Carlos Puyol stars in films and midfielder Andres Iniesta paints a Barcelona mural by kicking a paint-covered ball at a wall.

With a fun concept, great production value and sense of humour, Amsterdam 180’s spot struck a chord just a few days before the end of the month. A Team That Unites The World managed an impressive 132,458 shares, squeezing in at number 10.

Nike also generated a lot of quick shares with its blockbuster ad Possibilities. A stylish and breathlessly-edited montage of increasingly tough sporting challenges, the spot uses star power to its full effect. As well as featuring legends like Serena Williams and LeBron James, Possibilities benefits from a charming voiceover by ‘The Hangover’ star Bradley Cooper.

Garnering 230,031 shares and the number five spot, Possibilities shows the kind of flair that made Nike’s Write The Future such a smash during the 2010 World Cup. Both this and Qatar Airways’ spot show that brands and agencies alike are already gearing up for Brazil’s World Cup next year.

The impending release of Sony and Microsoft’s next generation of consoles has gaming in the air, and two gaming juggernauts were out to play this month. We’re, of course, referring to Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto 5 and Activision’s Call Of Duty: Ghosts, both of which premiered high-profile multiplayer teasers in August.

Rockstar played it straight with some fairly astounding gameplay footage, racking up a respectable 128,234 shares for 11th place. However, Call Of Duty pipped them to the post with 211,846 shares, perhaps due to the use of an unreleased Eminem track. Sitting five spots ahead at number six, this feud certainly isn’t over.

Other ads to appear in the top 20 this month include One Direction’sfirst fragrance advert, Kia’s update to its chubby hamster mascots and plucky underdog HelloFlo hanging on with their hilarious Camp Gyno spot.